Valorant stream snipers being paid in crypto to throw games was actually a massive troll

Valorant content creators are lashing out at problematic stream snipers who are allegedly being paid in crypto to throw their live games. However, a YouTuber who claims he was behind the screenshot, says it was all a fake.

Crypto throwing is a relatively new concept in the world of stream sniping. The concept is simple, players put a “bounty” out on a streamer on a Discord server, and players can claim the “bounty” by throwing said streamer’s ranked game.

As for why players would pay for this service, we won’t ever really know. But the prevailing theory is that players are betting against a streamer’s competitive game, and paying others to queue snipe them in hopes of a massive payday.

The problem has gotten so out of hand that Valorant streaming superstar, tarik, created his own private 10-man lobbies to skirt around public matches.

Valorant streamer PROD posted a screenshot from a Discord server, showing a bounty board listing of some of Valorant’s biggest streamers, with price tags for how much stream snipers can get by throwing their games. 

“No wonder I can’t hit Radiant,” PROD said along with the screenshot. The screenshot comes from a now-deleted video about crypto throwers from Shopify Rebellion’s assistant coach, tdawgg. 

The screenshot includes names such as G2 player and streamer, ShahZaM, Kyedae, Sinatraa, and Stewie2k. Also included in the list are tdawgg and PROD.

ShahZaM responded to the tweet, pretending to quote a viewer, “Shaz always cries about steam snipers.” 

Kyedae also responded to the tweet, saying, “This just makes me so sad. I don’t even know what to say. This is obviously very first-world problems, but it sucks.”

However, according to the YouTuber Chig Bepis, he in fact faked the screenshot, and claimed that this Discord community doesn’t actually exist.

The gag certainly convinced the majority of the Valorant community, including pro players, streamers, journalists, and this publication.

However, there’s no doubt stream sniping does take place in Valorant, with little players can do to avoid it. tarik’s 10-man lobbies were only temporary, and they are not in use as of now. And Valorant’s Premier mode has just finished its beta launch but is not meant to be a complete replacement for Competitive queue.